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Category Archives: FinTech

A lot of brain power and money have been poured into FinTech, especially lending and payment areas. These are indeed exciting areas with new business models and technologies. On the other hand, people rarely associate the sexy FinTech with payroll services. Although it may sound boring, payroll is actually an overlooked gold mine for innovators. Traditionally, payroll service companies make money by service fees. New HCM service companies such as Zenefits work as insurance brokers while providing free payroll and HR services. But if we lean under the hood and look at the process, there is an interesting opportunity. Continue reading →

“Silicon Valley is coming,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned in his annual letter to shareholders. Yes, FinTech startups are coming. In fact, there are currently 12,000 FinTech startups in the field. No doubt, most of them will fail but a few will succeed and disrupt financial service market. Of course, the million-dollar question is “How?!” I don’t have a crystal ball to divine the future, but history may teach us something. Let’s look at how technologies disrupted other fields (and themselves). Continue reading →

Antony Jenkins, the former CEO of Barclays, says a new wave of tech-savvy startups that can do things better, faster, and cheaper than the big banks will disrupt their traditional businesses like lending, payments, and wealth management. A number of fintech startups are working hard to disrupt. On the other hand, big banks don’t sit still either. Citi, BoA, Capital One are opening up APIs to outsiders. Citi also hopes to innovate much faster through crowd sourcing Mobile Challenge initiative with a mobile-first strategy. There are a lot of interesting moves. Continue reading →